The actual good news

Today the directors of our firm held a pep rally of sorts. Although, in fairness, pep rallies don't normally involve Q&A sessions, so I didn't a waste of bandwidth, in either figurative or purely technical terms.

I don't think I'm divulging any business secrets when I say that it was considerably more upbeat than its predecessors. What perked up my antennae, however, was a question about a specific market segment. It's not a particularly glamorous or cutting-edge segment, but its lack of excitement also makes it a steady source of revenue in the downtimes. The director who took the question talked up the inroads we've made--but also plainly acknowledged the past mistake of leaving that facet of business development to languish when fortunes perk up and more interesting, nimble opportunities hit our desks. "We won't make that mistake again," she (quite firmly) noted.

True, there's a certain value in having the authority figures--"Those Who Know Best" in the idiom of Truman Capote--reassure us that the wolf-tracks around the door are no longer fresh, corners have been turned, and so forth. Maybe it's just me being weird again, but I'm more comforted by such post-mortems. Not the "would'a"s so much but the "could'a"s and "should'a"s. In other words, what we've learned from our lumps. And, better still, to have it all on record for when the flush times threaten to slip into folly.